With updated statistics for 2015, this story by Maura McGee ’10 was originally published in the Summer 2010 issue of Bates Magazine.

Did you know that 60 percent of Bates alums marry fellow alums?

If you do know it, it’s time to forget it.

Untrue though it is, the 60 percent fact still circulates among Batesies and gets passed on from generation to generation.

On campus, “60 percent” launches some of the first conversations among incoming students. It’s an icebreaker for first-year women crowded on a bunk in Smith. Or, during a pre-orientation AESOP trip, the upperclass trip leader shares the fact with her new charges.

Later on, the statistic might be used to tease a friend after his or her embarrassing encounter, romantic or otherwise, with another Batesie: “Hey, it’s 60 percent — it could happen!”

Or, much later, the stat might come up in an awkward conversation, like when someone asks the senior couple who’s been dating since freshman year if they’re going to become “statistics.”

And the statistic is perpetuated via many pathways. Besides word of mouth, it’s published in at least one college guide. And the stat has history: A 1978 grad claimed to have heard then-President Thomas Hedley Reynolds announce at Convocation, “Look to your left, look to your right. Sixty percent of you will marry other Bates grads.”

Sixty percent grabs our attention, plays to our emotions and tests our imaginations. But can it really be true? Will over half of us really marry one another?

Well, no.

The accurate figure, as of 2010, is approximately 12.5 percent. Of the 23,356 living alums in the Bates database, 2,914 have a spouse or partner who is also a Bates alum. (If you include alums whose Bates spouse or partner is deceased, the number creeps up a few points.)

(UPDATE: As of Feb. 13, 2015, of the 25,199 living alums in the Bates database in 2015, 2,956 have a spouse or partner who is also a Bates alum. That puts the marriage rate at 11.7 percent.)

Finding this real answer, and exploring the connection between myth and reality, was part of my final project in the seminar “Marriage in America,” taught by Rebecca Herzig, the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies.

Besides finding the real Bates marriage statistic, I interviewed various Bates people, and when they heard the real marriage percentage, they expressed genuine shock.

One not-yet-hitched senior female, figuring the pool of spouses was only the size of Bates, responded in relief. “Thank God, I still have time! I won’t die alone with my cat!”

The concept of alumni marriage is a bit less heteronormative these days: the Bates group photo from the wedding of Sarah Wilson ’06 and Kristen Fries ’07 in October 2012.

Others went to great lengths trying to convince me that I was wrong.

They insisted they heard the figure recited during an official campus tour, while others named a long list of married Bates couples. One girl even tried to drag me to her dorm to show me the statistic printed in a college guidebook.

In fact, I found that other colleges of our ilk also tend to have a mythical marriage statistic. At Colby, the myth is 50 percent and the reality 11 percent, while at Carleton it’s 60 and 15 percent, respectively. At Middlebury, the numbers are 60 and 13 percent.

The politics of marriage has influenced the very well-being of the College.

I was also interested in unraveling the meaning attached to both the 13 percent and 60 percent.

The politics of marriage has influenced the very well-being of the college.

Anecdotally, I found that people who are highly involved in Bates affairs are often married to other Batesies. And when a Bates alum marries a non-Bates alum, a curious historical phenomenon has often come into play: The husband’s college tends to get a greater share of the couple’s philanthropy. (This can also be true at other colleges elsewhere.)

So, how did we get to 60 percent?

At the October 1987 wedding of classmates Graham Anderson ’85 and Shannon Billings ’85, there were 39 Bates alumni among the wedding guests, including the late Edmund S. Muskie ’36, hard to miss at middle right.

The people I spoke with alluded to the mesmerizing quality of 60 percent, how it foreshadows our transformation from single undergraduates sitting in Commons to adults married to someone who once possibly grazed next to us at the salad bar.

(And lest you think that students don’t ponder marriage: Think again. A classmate who’s a sociology major found that marriage is quite on the minds of Bates students.)

Perhaps 60 percent represents residual social pressure to find a mate. For women of another era, one goal of college was to find a husband, and 60 percent could reflect lingering social demand.

Bates friends of Akiko Doi ’07 and Christopher Theile ’07 adopt the Bobcat pose at their wedding in September 2013. Over time, the politics of marriage has influenced Bates’ very well-being.

Or, rather than some heteronormative notion of marriage, where men and women express traditional gender roles, maybe 60 percent embodies something else altogether: the lifetime bond shared by all Batesies.

In this sense, the statistic conveys the notion, or at least the hope, that most of us will remain connected in some capacity, with marriage merely being the traditional way for us to conceptualize a lifelong committed relationship.

Belief in the statistic speaks not to reason but to emotion; not to marriage but to friendship; and not to individuals but to community.

“The myth of very high numbers of Bates people marrying each other is simply another translation of what Bates people do do,” offered longtime administrator Bill Hiss ’66, “and that’s make very good friendships and keep those friendships for a lifetime.”

A gift of $11.5 million from current and past members of the Bates College Board of Trustees will empower the college to strengthen core academic programs and “position Bates to embrace transformational change,” says Bates President Clayton Spencer.

“When you have talented teacher-scholars mentoring very bright, internationally oriented students, you get great results in the fellowship arena,” says Matt Auer, dean of the faculty and vice president for acacemic affairs.

“Bates debate is this wonderful balance between being really open and friendly — a community of friends — while having a competitive edge,” says Taylor Blackburn ’15 of Atherton, Calif., the 10th-ranked varsity speaker in the country.

The Harvard media note President Clayton Spencer’s return to Cambridge for the anniversary of a Harvard summer academy she helped start. Public radio’s Marketplace heads Down East to visit Raye’s Mustard, the 110-year-old family business of Kevin Ray ’83. Rosamond Toomey ’33 gets attention from the Hartford Courant for turning 103. And the Sarasota Herald-Tribune looks at tennis player Tim Berg ’14, a cancer survivor back home in Florida competing in a tournament fundraiser hosted by Dick Vitale.

]]>http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/11/08/batesnews-november-2013/feed/0Slide show: 21 pivotal first moments for the Class of 2017http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/09/19/class-of-2017-moments-arrive/
http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/09/19/class-of-2017-moments-arrive/#commentsThu, 19 Sep 2013 14:00:47 +0000http://www.bates.edu/news/?p=68757Take a look at 21 first moments for the Class of 2017, from move-in day to first week of classes.]]>

Members of the Class of 2017 arrived for their outdoor AESOP trips on Monday, Aug. 26, and began classes on Wednesday, Sept. 4. In between, they…well, take a look for yourself! — Jay Burns, Bates Magazine editor

1. Monday, Aug. 26, 9:04 a.m.

AESOP trip leaders do triple duty. (1) They lead trips. (2) They help students move their stuff into residences. (3) And for frazzled families arriving from far and near, AESOPers offer a chill, friendly greeting. Here, Gunnar Manchester ’15 of Rehoboth, Mass., and Emile Kaldany ’16 of Washington, D.C., help out. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

2. Monday, Aug. 26, 9:40 a.m.

Charlotte Koudijs Taverna ’86 helps her son, Willem ’17, move into Rand Hall. Thirty-five students in the Class of 2017 have a parent who is a Bates alumnus or alumna. The youngest alumni parents are George Stewart ’87 of Concord, Mass., and Erik ’87 and Susanne Morrison Jarnryd ’87 of Concord, Mass., while the 2017 cohort’s senior member is Dirk Visser ’74 of Wezembeek-Oppem, Belgium. We think the socks in the crate below, meanwhile, come from TJ Maxx. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

3. Monday, Aug. 26, 9:56 a.m.

Parents spend years getting our children to make their own bed. Then the first thing we do when arriving at Bates? Help our children make their beds. Here, Akira Townes ’17 of Timonium, Md., and her mother, Ardinia, make her bed in Parker Hall. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.)

4. Monday, Aug. 26, 4:07 p.m.

Yep, this is the Bates face that first-year students saw as they were “ambushed” at the Keigwin Amphitheater by student leaders of this year’s outdoor trips. The face belongs to Sean Enos ’14 of Lynnfield, Mass., and he and his fellow leaders are about to lob water balloons at unsuspecting first years. (Mike Bradley/Bates College)

6. Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2:17 p.m.

Before the first tackle is made, ball booted or mile run, first-year and upperclass athletes do fitness testing. Here, football linebacker Sam Freeman ’16 of Newton, Mass., does the heavy lifting as head coach Mark Harriman watches and talks with defensive lineman Nate Friesth ’17 of Munford, Tenn. (Marc Glass/Bates College)

7. Tuesday, Aug. 27, 6:53 p.m.

No matter where the Class of 2017 went on this year’s 48 outdoor trips around Maine and New Hampshire, they all saw the same great sunset on their first night together. Trip leader Sam Myers ’16 of Riverton, Wyo., watches the sunset at a campground just northeast of Maine’s Mount Desert Island. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

8. Wednesday, Aug. 28, 10:29 a.m.

People say college is a place where it’s safe to make mistakes. Sometimes that’s true. But here trip co-leader Bobby Lankin ’15 of West Hartford, Conn., has no room for error as he watches thunderstorms approach his troupe, one of two “Baxter Bushwackers” trips, on the Hamlin Ridge trail in Baxter State Park. A few minutes later, Lankin and co-leader Sophie Pellegrini of Potomac, Md., decide to turn back to avoid getting caught above the tree line during the storm. (Mike Bradley/Bates College)

9. Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2:51 p.m.

Two first-years contemplate doorknob installation on their trip to work on a Habitat for Humanity project in Lamoine for a young family of four, including a daughter with a severe neurological disorder. “You’re bonding over this great project that is helping to build new lives for people, not only new houses. I think it’s just kind of perfect,” says trip leader Abby Knudsen ’16 of New York City. Pictured are Gynweth Williams ’17 of Newbury, Vt., and Misha Copeland ’17 of Spicewood, Texas. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

10. Wednesday, Aug. 28, 12:06 p.m.

Charlie don’t surf. But Joe Lawton ’17 of New York City does — now — and here he rides his very first wave, cheered by trip leader Peter Cowan ’14 of Bethel, Maine. (Marc Glass/Bates College)

11. Wednesday, Aug. 28, 1:54 p.m.

The fog rolls in off the 59-degree ocean at Popham Beach as three students, with surfing clearly on their minds, head out. Pictured are Sadie James ’17 of Avon, Maine; Maddy Ekey ’17 of Bozeman, Mont.; and Sarah Holmes ’17 of Cumberland Center, Maine. (Marc Glass/Bates College)

12. Thursday, Aug. 29, 2:42 p.m.

The aforementioned Baxter Bushwackers break into the clear a day after their close call with a thunderstorm, reaching the summit of Mount Katahdin. Grace Huang ’17 of Flagstaff, Ariz., is at left; Bobby Lankin at right. (Mike Bradley/Bates College)

13. Friday, Aug. 30, 2:16 p.m.

Back on campus, the Baxter Bushwackers exchange phone numbers. For reasons of safety and security, each dorm room still has a telephone. But if you call a dorm phone and leave a voice message for a student, don’t expect a return call. The light might blink for months. Just sayin’. (Mike Bradley/Bates College)

14. Saturday, Aug. 31, 4:35 p.m.

At the final gathering before parents depart campus, Sarah Harrison tears up as she looks at her son, Raymond ’17. She, her husband, Bill, and Raymond were listening to President Spencer describe leaving her own children at college. This is what Sarah says she was thinking: “He’s our only child, and I think President Spencer captured exactly how I was feeling as a parent. I’m so proud. I want this for him so much. It’s what we’ve been working for, hoping for, dreaming for his whole life. But it’s really hard to let him go.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

15. Sunday, Sept. 1, 7:43 p.m.

In the spring, getting seniors to go wild for their Senior Week photo can be a frustrating task. But first-years still aim to please. Here, the 502 members of the Class of 2017 (don’t worry, we counted them all) show their zeal for a class photo in the Gomes Chapel. Above the students are seven banners representing major religions plus an eighth showing the planet Earth, symbolizing the world’s humanity. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

16. Tuesday, Sept. 3, 4 p.m.

Heading to Convocation, Associate Professor of English Sanford Freedman has his gown over his shoulder and hood in hand, symbols of his engagement with the life of the mind. He stops to talk with landscape architect Bill Bergevin, himself outfitted in garb reflecting his own engagement with the life of campus flora. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

17. Tuesday, Sept. 3, 4:53 p.m.

The hand that’s taking notes about President Spencer’s Convocation address is not a reporter’s but a first-year’s. The note-taking student calls out Spencer’s suggestion to “live your life from the inside out,” meaning get to know yourself. And “get your hand dirty” — try different things and don’t assume life is a straight line. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

18. Tuesday, Sept. 3, 5:46 p.m.

Convocation asks the community to look ahead together. Afterward, at a memorial service, the community takes a look back together. As members of the football team watch, head coach Mark Harriman pours water from Lake Andrews on a newly planted tree honoring Bates people who died in the previous year. The list includes Troy Pappas ’16, a freshman on Harriman’s team last year, who died on Oct. 5, 2012, from injuries suffered in a fall down a stairwell in Parker Hall. (Mike Bradley/Bates College)

19. Tuesday, Sept. 3, 9:12 p.m.

Men’s soccer was the first Bobcat team to hit the field this fall, and here Jonathan Lin ’15 (left) of Natick, Mass., and Ethan Kass ’14 of New York City celebrate Lin’s goal during the team’s 2-0 victory over Maine Maritime. (Mike Bradley/Bates College)

20. Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2:51 p.m.

Suddenly it was time to hit the library, where the computer workstations on the main floor have been dramatically rearranged to reflect what these students do with ease: carry on multiple conversations, work alone or in groups and get the work done. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

21. Friday, Sept. 6, 9:40 p.m.

They used to light bonfires on Mount David to celebrate this and that. Fireworks over campus (silhouetting Hathorn’s bell tower) do the trick, too, in this case celebrating the opening of the new academic year. This photo was taken by Associate Professor of Mathematics Shepley “Chip” Ross.

Here’s a set of Q-and-A stories with Bates students whose summer endeavors took them around the world. They share the lessons they learned along the way, including the big difference between Bates and the real world: meetings.

Ever wonder what professors say about each other behind closed doors? Nice things, it turns out. We’ve posted a set of remarks by Bates professors, delivered at the final faculty meeting of the year in May, in tribute to colleagues who retired.

Lake Auburn, Lewiston-Auburn’s water supply, delivered a shock last September when more than 200 trout turned up dead in its waters. The incident prompted a new Bates-community collaboration to monitor lake conditions.

Complementing a feature in the Summer issue of Bates Magazine, this short video features Bourque talking about the Red Paint People, an ancient culture that lived along the Maine coast, then suddenly disappeared.

President Clayton Spencer comments on the Obama plan to tie federal financial aid to a scorecard of college cost and value. Gabe Clark ’02 tells the Bangor Daily News that Maine is poised to market its grass-fed beef to a wider audience. And ESPNW features former Nordic skier Kaitlyn McElroy ’07, who switched to kayaking after a debilitating training accident.

The newly minted graduates of the Class of 2013 are in, with 92 percent class participation. Also in is the venerable Doris Whipple ’34, age 99 and going strong as the pianist for the singing of the Alma Mater at Reunion. President Clayton Spencer is in. If you haven’t given yet this year, please consider joining the Bates Fund by midnight Sunday, June 30. If you have given, Bates thanks you!

In the last athletics event of 2012-13, Bates women take second place at the NCAA Rowing Championships. Known to generations of Bobcats, coach Bob Flynn wins a distinctive award reserved for assistant coaches who “exhibit the integrity and dedication to the game of college baseball.” And the men’s cross country and track programs finish the year ranked fourth in the nation.

Got some house painting to do this summer? So does Bates. And where better to begin than at the beginning, with the college’s oldest building, Hathorn Hall (1857), and the 60 layers of paint on Hathorn’s signature columns.

The Maine media recall the late Philip Isaacson ’47, a revered champion of the arts, leading Lewiston citizen and mentor to lawyers and artists alike who died June 20. Caroline Baumann ’87 gains wide notice with her appointment as director of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt. And the Los Angeles Times profiles Allison Mann ’08, head researcher who upholds Mad Men‘s reputation for authenticity.

]]>http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/06/28/batesnews-june-2013/feed/0BatesNews: May 2013http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/05/23/batesnews-may-2013/
http://www.bates.edu/news/2013/05/23/batesnews-may-2013/#commentsThu, 23 May 2013 19:00:34 +0000http://www.bates.edu/news/?p=65566In this issue, the best way to follow Commencement — if you're not on campus.]]>

A leading scholar and globally engaged expert in the arenas of environmental policy, energy policy, sustainable development and foreign aid, Matthew Auer comes to Bates from Indiana University, where he is dean of the Hutton Honors College and professor of public and environmental affairs. He becomes vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at Bates on July 1.

The question was this: Would 555 alumni donors respond to the call to make their annual Bates Fund gifts on May 15? Well, it was never really a question. Zooming past the goal, 599 alumni made gifts. The influx pushed overall alumni participation up 3 points in one day, to 37 percent. The end-of-year goal is 55 percent by June 30.

This Short Term, choreographer and dancer Erin Gottwald ’98 joined rapper, writer, actor and director Postell Pringle ’98 in creating a multidisciplinary adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” that Bates students performed for Lewiston-Auburn schoolchildren.

E. Robert Kinney ’39, LL.D. ’85, who entered the food industry by canning crabmeat in his Maine home en route to becoming CEO of General Mills, died May 2. A Bates trustee for 27 years, including 17 as chair, he was considered a creative entrepreneur and model corporate leader who, when appointed CEO of General Mills in 1973, was praised for his “good, gutsy Maine business sense” by his predecessor.

“Senior thesis sits in my mind as a project that will never actually be mine to take on,” admits first-year Hannah Albertine. But then she met senior Taryn O’Connell, and “I found myself staring directly at the very thing that had appeared so theoretical and scary to me: a big, black three-ring binder.” Inside the binder: O’Connell’s exploration of a citizen vs. business debate about Androscoggin River pollution in the 1950s.

Al Filreis was named a “Ten Tech Innovator” by The Chronicle of Higher Education for his belief that massively open online courses (MOOCs) can bring the humanities to the masses. But it’s more than a belief, as he told the Bates faculty recently. He seems to have done it.

Don’t feel bad. Scientific American quotes psychologist Jonathan Adler ’00, who says that negative feelings play a positive role in our well-being. Actor John Ambrosino ’01 talks with the LGBT-focused Boston Spirit Magazine about his lead role in On the Town. On campus, Darby Ray, director of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, describes for the Sun Journal a Bates course that found a home in a local elementary school.

Olivia Norrmen-Smith ’13 will use her Watson Fellowship, among the most coveted award at highly selective liberal arts colleges, to travel to Africa and Asia to understand the cultural perceptions of medical stroke, one of humankind’s leading causes of death and disability.

The single fee for 2013–14, covering tuition, room, board and fees, is $58,950 and represents a 3 percent increase over 2012–13, the lowest fee increase in more than four decades. Forty-four percent of Bates students qualify for financial aid, and the college delivers financial aid packages that meet 100 percent of each student’s demonstrated need.

Just a reminder that Bates Magazine stories are always available online, including the Winter 2013 edition, with a new profile of Benjamin Mays ’20 — April 9 being the 45th anniversary of his eulogy for the slain Martin Luther King Jr. — plus photographs from three young alumni and the cover story about training your brain to handle what’s known as “eco-anxiety.”

Getting students to think like anthropologists, says Loring Danforth, winner of the 2013 Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching, means getting them to see and admit the cultural underpinnings of their beliefs and interests. Although the process “can be really agonizing” for students, Danforth says, the intensity means “you’re hitting on something really important and interesting.”

What is nature, who gets to decide its fate and why? And how can those who are excluded from environmental governance get some say? Sonja Pieck’s excellence in trying to answer those questions, through her teaching and her South America–focused research, is why she’s been promoted to associate professor of environmental studies, with tenure.

Since winter seems to be hanging on for dear life, why not share this audio slide show, produced late in the ski season by photographer and videographer Michael Bradley, featuring Avril Dunleavy ’15 of Salt Lake City and Emily Bamford ’15 of East Melbourne, Australia talking about life as Bobcat alpine skier.

With a winning NESCAC record so far this spring, men’s lacrosse is something of a bookend to the other resurgent men’s sport in 2012-13, that being football and its 5-3 season last fall. Sports Information Director Andy Walter says success follows the familiar formula of combining something old and something new.

Here in Maine, Doug Hodgkin, emeritus professor of political science, compares the attitudes of Maine voters who favor gun rights with those who favor gun control, and marine biologist Will Ambrose explains the biology and the sociology of a dispute between worm diggers and clam diggers. In Chicago, Postell Pringle ’98 is wowing audiences as Othello in a sizzling hip-hop adaptation of the play.

Greg Anderson, an assistant in instruction in biology, works with a student doing field work on a Brunswick mudflat of the kind that’s occasionally closed to clam harvesters for conservation reasons. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen.

Historic friction between two marine fisheries groups is playing out once again in Maine, where proposed legislation would give coastal towns the power to prohibit bloodworm digging in areas closed to clam harvesting.

Occasionally, a Maine town will close a flat to allow younger seed clams to mature. Currently, such closures doen’t apply to worm diggers.

The proposed legislation assumes that seeded flats need to be protected from both clam and worm digging, an assumption that riles worm diggers.

“Somebody is always trying to get us kicked out of their town,” said worm dealer Phil Harrington during a recent meeting in Brunswick to discuss the legislation.

Bates marine biologist Will Ambrose tends to side with the worm diggers, telling Bangor Daily Newsreporter Beth Brogan that the “impact worm digging has on clams has probably been overstated.”

Ambrose tells the BDN that according to his and his students’ research, not a lot of clams are “impacted to the point of death by worm digging.”

He also points to research by colleague and collaborator Brian Beal, a marine ecologist at the University of Maine, that specifically looks at how worm digging affects young clams. Beal concludes that “blood wormers should continue to harvest commercially from areas closed to shellfishing without reprisal or fear that they are causing damage to populations of juvenile soft-shell clams.”

“I’m surprised somebody hasn’t been shot over this.”

The hostility between the two digging groups, Ambrose adds, “goes back to at least 1979…because these groups do not mix, for a whole variety of reasons: socioeconomic, geopolitical — they just don’t get along. I’m surprised somebody hasn’t been shot over this.”

In 2005, environmental studies major Eben Sypitkowski ’05 spent time with worm diggers while doing his honors thesis on bloodworm digging.

He described for Bates Magazinethe offbeat culture of the hardy yet disenfranchised worm diggers, and how there’s enviable talent in being able to “keep your butt to the wind and your hoe in the mud when your back is killing you.”

With the Maine Legislature considering various gun control measures this session, the Kennebec Journal turns to Professor Emeritus of Political Science Douglas Hodgkin for insight into how voters treat lawmakers who do or don’t share their views on guns.

Hodgkin tells reporter Tom Bell that Mainers who support gun rights tend to cast their votes for candidates who share their views.

But gun control supporters aren’t as vigilant, says Hodgkin. They won’t punish lawmakers for voting what they consider to be the wrong way on the issue because, as Bell writes, “other issues are more important to them.